All posts tagged Elections 2010

A week before the elections, voter anger isn’t subsiding and there’s a lot of blame going around as the Democrats face the expected loss of their House majority and maybe the Senate, too. The economy is lousy, and there’s a sense that President Barack Obama just doesn’t get it.

Zoom ahead to early this year: Obama said that the economy had “turned a corner.” Technically true, but if voters are listening, they’re taking the president’s messaging with many grains of salt.

In April, Obama said “the worst is over.” But then came news that growth had stagnated, and that the mortgage industry was in (perpetual) crisis, that businesses just weren’t hiring.

So if voters are skeptical about what comes out of Obama’s mouth, it’s not because he’s not saying the right things. The economy just isn’t recovering at the pace that Obama and his advisers expected it would. Add to this the drumbeat of doom that counter-pressures independents–the right wing echo-sphere’s charge that Obama ruined the economy–and it’s not hard to see how soft Democrats and independents aren’t going to take this president’s word as bond.

The Economist looks at President Obama’s problem with white, working-class Americans.

If the white working class has a capital, says Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute, it is West Virginia, where more than nine out of ten people are white and six out of ten have never gone to college. For more than half a century, the Mountain State sent the late Robert Byrd, a Democrat, to represent it in the Senate. Now the state’s popular governor, Joe Manchin, also a Democrat, is hoping to take his place. But this year everything is different. Despite Mr Manchin’s relentless efforts to distance himself from that fellow in the White House, the race is a toss-up…

In just over a week, Republicans are widely expected to win control of the House, taking the 39 seats they need – and then some. The Election Day outcome for the Senate isn’t so clear since several races are too close to call. The results will kick off a round of changes in Washington that go well beyond moving offices or measuring drapes.

At the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty notes that would be a historic outcome. “Not since the election of 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit,” she writes.

Democrats are struggling to survive in a toxic political environment for a party in power: a weak economy; a president whose approval rate is sagging; an anti-Washington, anti-incumbent political mood; tens of millions of dollars in spending by outside interest groups; an opposition that appears more energized than their own base.

In addition to their anticipated congressional gains, Republicans also expect pickups in the 37 states that are electing governors, and in legislative races down the ballot. Those elections could have repercussions for congressional redistricting next year and for the presidential contest in 2012.

Voters will do much more than decide control of Congress next week: They will determine whether the most powerful political figures in Washington are up, out or ousted from their leadership jobs.

Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful House speaker in decades, is in serious danger of losing her job, either by Democrats’ surrendering the majority or by emerging with a margin too thin to protect her. John Boehner is a cinch to replace her if Republicans win back power — but expectations are running so high, his job could be on the line if they fall short.

Harry Reid, a less formidable and less polished leader than Pelosi, could easily lose either his race — a 50-50 proposition at this point — or, less likely, his 10-seat majority. If the Senate falls, Mitch McConnell would become majority leader and inherit arguably the worst leadership job in Washington: running the Senate with a meaningless margin and squeezed by a bunch of tea party senators hellbent on stiffing the establishment.

All of these dramas will play out in the hours and days after the results roll in. Publicly, all of the leaders — as well other lawmakers watching their backs or contemplating a power grab — insist they spend little time gaming out the post-election scramble. Privately, everyone in leadership is, well, gaming out the post-election scramble…

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

Joe Hallett, probably the best political journalist in Ohio, wondered recently in his Columbus Dispatch column why his state’s candidates for governor would want the job, given the immense financial problems facing the Buckeye State.

His question could be asked of every gubernatorial candidate in America today. The eventual winners will inherit multibillion-dollar budget deficits that in most states are as large as or larger than any in their histories.

In the next year, the nation’s governors – from sea to shining sea – will be making unpleasant choices about whose benefits to cut, which jobs to eliminate and perhaps whose taxes to raise and by how much. That will make many of them realize Mr. Hallett is onto something.

The same question might be put to candidates for Congress, since the federal budget shortfalls make those in the states pale by comparison. The potential solutions are probably even more complicated and politically painful than those on the state level.

It’s almost impossible to find a gubernatorial candidate who, when talking about reducing deficits, suggests that taxes may have to be raised, even in conjunction with spending cuts.

Rhodes Cook is a veteran Washington political analyst who tracks national elections and voting trends and publishes a bimonthly political newsletter. Click here for Mr. Cook’s full bio.

It is hard to believe that it has been 50 years since the presidential election of 1960. For those of us of a certain age, memories of that campaign a half century ago are still vivid… John F. Kennedy’s acceptance speech in the sunny Los Angeles Coliseum… The presidential debates between Democrat Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon that fall… The long Election Night tally that did not produce a winner until the next day, when Illinois fell to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Nixon conceded the election.

Not only was the 1960 election memorable, it also was important on two distinct levels. One was the story itself, compellingly told by Theodore White in his landmark work, The Making of the President 1960. His “you are there” style of reporting changed political journalism from a rendering of events to a more intimate, personality-driven narrative that exists to this day.

But what made Mr. White’s book so effective was that he had such a wealth of colorful material with which to work. For the 1960 contest marked the beginning of a whole new era of presidential campaigning.

By and large, it was an election where the airplane replaced the railroad as the main mode of political transportation, where television supplanted the radio as the prime source of information, and where pollsters and computers found a lasting place in the analysis of demographic and electoral data.

The campaign between Messrs. Kennedy and Nixon, both in their 40s, reflected the turning of a page in the evolution of American politics. With the two-term presidency of 70-year-old Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) coming to a close, they represented the emergence of a younger generation of national leaders. And their contest had a number of historic elements.

Everyone expected last night’s first (and likely final) debate in the New York governor’s race to be a circus. It was. But like the ringmaster, the format for the event at Hofstra University on Long Island kept everything running fairly smoothly. For details, check out the live blog at WSJ Metropolis.

The likely one and only debate in the mud-slinging New York governor’s race was fast-moving and polite Monday night, with the two leading candidates staying focused on the state’s many problems – its $8 billion budget deficit, poor educational standings and lost of jobs.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the front-runner who had the most to lose, delivered a polished performance. He vowed to shake up business-as-usual in Albany, cut programs and clean up corruption…

His GOP opponent, tea-party-supported businessman Carl Paladino, kept his characteristic bluster in check, and he appeared to be using the opportunity to come across as a more mainstream politician, one voters could picture as governor. But he seemed stiff at times.

This was not a debate in the conventional sense: There were too many talking heads competing for airtime for a back-and-forth between candidates to have been feasible. Instead, they answered questions for 90 minutes—dealing directly with the moderators and questioners in the audience, and not with each other. As such, it was a series of 90-second vignettes—vignettes that quickly grew dull over time.

There can be no question that after this debate, Paladino is over: finito. He was fidgety, furrow-faced, almost entirely unsmiling, and largely inarticulate. The Republican Party’s candidate, it is remarkable to relate, even sounded less impressive at times than Ms. Davis the ex-madam, who uttered the zinger of the evening. Describing what would happen if the state didn’t reduce its burdens on entrepreneurship, she said, “Businesses will leave the state quicker than Carl Paladino at a gay bar.” (Later, in addressing a question on the Metropolitan Transport Authority, she said, “The difference between the MTA and my escort service is that I kept just one set of books and delivered reliable and on-time service.”)

Reports on campaign fund-raising – and spending—came out over the weekend, showing a fund-raising surge among Republicans.

A WSJ analysis by Brody Mullins and Danny Yadron of the Federal Election Commission reports for the 10 closest Senate races and 40 most-competitive House contests found that Republicans raised $60 million in the third quarter while their Democratic opponents raised $45 million. So how much is going into individual races and how is all that money being spent?

At Politico, David Catanese takes a look at the top 20 Senate races and finds that Republican candidates started October with about $16 million more than their Democratic rivals.

That stark gap in cash on hand between the candidates in the two parties is illustrative of the momentum Republicans have in a swath of individual races across the map.

Republican Senate candidates also outraised their Democratic opponents over the past three months by more than $17 million — $57 million to $39.5 million.

Of the 20 races surveyed, only a few Democrats were able to best their Republican opponent during the third-quarter fundraising spree — Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who brought in about $700,000 more than Republican Ken Buck, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), whose $6.2 million haul marked the Republican Carly Fiorina by around $300,000.

Political action committees connected to foreign-based corporations have donated nearly $60 million to candidates and parties over the past decade, including $12 million since the start of 2009, federal contribution records show. Top donors in this election cycle include PACs tied to British drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, which together account for about $1 million; Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, at nearly $650,000; and Credit Suisse Securities, at over $350,000.

The donations must come from U.S. citizens or residents, and they make up a small fraction of overall political giving. Nonetheless, the role of foreign companies and their U.S. subsidiaries has become particularly sensitive in this year’s midterm campaigns, which have featured widespread voter dismay over the economy and eruptions of anti-foreign rhetoric from both parties.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

Independent and third-party candidates for high political office are like many varieties of flowers. They bloom in the spring and die in October when conditions become much less hospitable.

From Florida to New England – where the hopes of those who want to see a third political party or independent force give the Democrats and Republicans a run for their money – this long-established pattern has shown up again in the final month of the 2010 campaign.

In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist, who ran for the U.S. Senate as an independent when it became clear he could not win the Republican nomination, had held a lead in the polls over much of the spring and summer. Now, he finds himself trailing by double digits.

In Massachusetts, Tim Cahill, the state treasurer, was a Democrat who turned independent to run for governor. He had been competitive in the three-way race for governor earlier in the year, but now finds his chances evaporating.

In Maine and Rhode Island, independent candidates are also in the governors’ races. But there, too, the chances for a non-Democratic or non-Republican governor seem to be fading. Eliot Cutler, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, is filling the role of independent candidate for governor in Maine, while former Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee is running as an independent in Little Rhody, where his chances of winning are perhaps the best of any independent around the country. That doesn’t count Alaska, where the situation is unclear after Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost the GOP primary for renomination and is running a write-in campaign for her seat.

Also in a special category is the Colorado governor’s race. Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman, jumped into the race as a third-party candidate after the GOP primary in August nominated a political newcomer, Dan Maes. The Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, retains the lead but a recent poll had Mr. Tancredo curtting the margin to single digits…

After swinging behind Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in 2008, Ohio already has swung Republican this year, leaving a lot of Democratic incumbents fighting for their political careers.

At Politico, David Rogers writes about Rep. John Boccieri, a freshman who is campaigning hard to keep his seat in Ohio’s 16th congressional district.

Compactly drawn, almost evenly split in the 2008 presidential elections, the district captures much about 2010 as well.

From Sarah Palin to Karl Rove and the billionaire brothers controlling Koch Industries, national Republicans have made this a must-win to take back the House. But even at this late date, the deal’s not done, and Boccieri’s ability to hang on illustrates why Democrats sent their members home early — a full 30 days more since August compared to 1994 — to get out their vote against the Republican tide…

Monday night’s debate with GOP challenger, Jim Renacci, could be pivotal. A former mayor of Wadsworth, car dealer, sports team investor and multimillionaire (he first made his fortune as the owner and operator of nursing homes) Renacci successfully maneuvered last week to keep third-party candidate, Libertarian Jeffrey Blevins, off the stage. The hard-edged tactics risk some backlash, but given the tea party, anti-government, anti-spending ferment in Ohio, Republicans want all that energy channeled behind their man for fear that Boccieri can run through a split field.

Jon Ward at the Daily Caller writes about Rep. Steve Driehaus’s fight not only to raise money after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled funding but also the bitter dispute with antiabortion groups criticizing his vote for the health care overhaul.

Driehaus filed a complaint against the Susan B. Anthony List on Oct. 4 with the Ohio Elections Commission, protesting a billboard that the group planned to put up in Cincinnati.
The billboards said, “SHAME ON STEVE DRIEHAUS!” in large letters. Below that, in smaller letters, the billboard said, “Driehaus voted FOR taxpayer-funded abortion.”…

The broader implication of the dispute is that whatever the Ohio Elections Commission decides, it will be rendering an official opinion on the bitter dispute over whether Obamacare does in fact authorize federal funding of abortions…

Last night’s nationally televised debate between Delaware Senate candidates Christine O’Donnell, the tea party favorite and one of Sarah Palin’s “Mama Grizzlies,” and Democrat Chris Coons, a county executive, proved to be lively as the two highlighted their differences over tax cuts, abortion, health care and energy policy.

Since O’Donnell’s primary defeat of GOP Rep. Mike Castle – the favorite to win the seat formerly held by Vice President Joe Biden – she has drawn a lot of attention for colorful comments and controversial positions she had taken in the past. And she’s raised a lot of money. Coons, meantime, is running far ahead in the polls, with the latest, a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll out on Wednesday, showing him with a 19-point lead. But that cushion might not be enough. Both President Barack Obama and Biden are heading to Delaware on Friday to give Coons a hand in raising money.

In this debate tonight, O’Donnell has not seemed uncomfortable for one second** — even in her most obvious dodge, about whether she really thinks evolution is a “myth.” The difference is, she is a talk show regular. Among the many things wrong with talking-head gab shows, which have proliferated/ metastasized in the past generation — they’re cheap to produce, they fill air time, they make journalists into celebrities, they suit the increasing political niche-ization of cable networks — is that they reward an affect of breezy confidence on all topics and penalize admissions of complexity, of ignorance on a specific topic, or of the need for time to think.

O’Donnell comes across as a perfect, unflappable product of the talk-show culture. Sarah Palin knows that she is bad under open questioning — so she avoids it, speaks only to selected audiences, is interviewed only by Fox. If she were to run for president, which I’ve always doubted, this would make her brittle for the unavoidable main campaign. Christine O’Donnell shows that the other path can create a better, unshakably on-message product for this era.

When the 90-minute session was over, the answer was no on both fronts. To the extent any big story emerges from this debate, it will probably be O’Donnell’s decision to contrast her “Catholic faith” to Coons’ “Marxist belief.” The moment was the product of frustration on her part, as she tried to bat down questions from one of the moderators about her previous claims that she’d “dabbled into witchcraft” in her teen years. The basis for her claim that Coons has Marxist sympathies is essentially baseless — a tongue-in-cheek newspaper column he wrote in college, but that doesn’t really matter. To swing voters, the headline “O’Donnell accuses Coons of being a Marxist” will surely reflect worse on her than him; they already suspect she’s unhinged – that she’d make such an extreme-sounding allegation on national television will only confirm that judgment. O’Donnell’s problem is that she makes too many voters uneasy, and to the extent her Marxist line dominates post-debate coverage, that problem will only get worse.

Besides that, there’s just not much to say. Coons was probably a bit too dismissive of O’Donnell at times, frequently prefacing his replies to her statements by shaking his head and marveling that “there’s just so much there” to respond to. Voters already see that O’Donnell as something of a lunatic; they don’t need Coons pointing it out to them over and over. But his stylistic sins were minor and he committed no major gaffes. Die-hard conservatives surely found plenty of ideological objections to Coons’ statements, but they’re already in O’Donnell’s camp.

Rhodes Cook is a veteran Washington political analyst who tracks national elections and voting trends and publishes a bimonthly political newsletter. Click here for Mr. Cook’s full bio.

In the last election cycle, Democrats registered millions of new voters, providing a powerful sign of their ultimate success in November 2008.

But if the Republicans – or even the Democrats, for that matter – are to have a highly productive election next month, it will not be based on a new round of registrations. Victory will hinge on mobilizing those who are currently on the voting rolls.

Registration totals from a sampling of states show there has been more of a purge than a surge since 2008, with a slight downward tick in the number of registered Democrats and Republicans.

To a degree, that is expected. Many states clear the “deadwood” on their rolls after a major election, with the number of registered voters often decreasing. At the same time, however, there has been an upward movement in the ranks of independent voters who have consciously chosen not to register with either major party.

This latest upswing in independents represents a return to normalcy. For the better part of the last quarter century, independents have been the growth stock in the realm of registered voters. At the same time, the proportion of Democrats has been declining while the Republican share of registrants has stayed basically static. (That based on totals in the 30 or so states that register voters by party.)…

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Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s unique site for analysis of the political and policy maneuvering in Washington in the era of Barack Obama. It features the Capital Journal columns and occasional other postings by executive Washington editor Gerald F. Seib, and will house Political Wisdom, the Journal’s daily aggregation of the smartest political analysis from around the Internet. Also look for regular columns by Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and occasional contributions from others.